with regard to the punishment of death. Death is the highest punishment which can now be inflicted for any crime. The feelings of this latter age do not allow of the barbarous aggravations of death practised by our ancestors, and we hang alike the sheep-stealer and the parricide.

"I do not suppose that any man will justify the horrible aggravations and refinements of cruelty by which our ancestors increased the severity of the punishment of death; but as long as the present system of equal visitation for unequal guilt continues, we are the authors of the most crying injustice. If our ancestors inflicted more than mere death, by adding the cruelty of torture, at least they had the excuse that they thereby observed something like a scale of punishments. Our ancestors, even in the remotest times, endeavoured to make the punishment in some degree bear a proportion to the crime. It is true that, in times of barbarous feeling, they put men to death by cruel and detestable means; but in so doing, they provided a scale of crime and punishment. Though we have, thank God, abolished that savage and unchristian practice, we have failed to establish a descending scale; and since it is impossible now to inflict more than death for the greatest crimes, our only resource is to inflict less than death for offences of minor aggravation. There are various crimes placed at a great distance, both as to enormity and depravity, below the crime of murder; and yet the punishment of death is indiscriminately inflicted upon all of them."

He afterwards proceeded to observe on the degree of terror which, it is assumed, the punishment of death excites in the minds of criminals, and the feeling with which the spectators behold its infliction. "The philosophic criminal," said he, "may even imagine that at least there is something dignified in dying well, and that part of the infamy of his punishment may be compensated by the firmness of his endurance. He may feel that the infamy attached to it may be absorbed and extinguished in the blaze of a death boldly and patiently suffered, with a magnanimity and heroism worthy of a better cause. It is for that reason, among others, that I think the punishment of death ill adapted to the crime of forgery; and it is to be recollected that it is not mere justice, but manifest, signal, and conspicuous justice, which is necessary to satisfy the public. Hence it may be laid down as a maxim, with very few exceptions, that the acts to which the punishment of death should be applied, should not only be in the highest degree dangerous to society, but should be attended with circumstances of violence and blood, leaving a deep impression on the mind of the community, and reviving indignation at the offender at the recollection of his crime. It is only to such fearful offences that the punishment of death should be applied. I do not mean to undervalue the guilt of forgery; but I con tend that, according to the general feeling of mankind, it is not that species of crime which, by subsequent reflection upon its circumstances, excites sentiments of indignation, or recalls a sense of the justice of the punishment."

Sir James's character as a parliamentary speaker was thus sketched by Mr Lytton Bulwer: "He never spoke on a subject without displaying, not only all that was peculiarly necessary to that subject, but all that a full mind, long gathering and congesting, has to pour forth upon

any subject. The language, without being antithetic, was artificial and ornate. The action and voice were vehement, but not passionate; the tone and conception of the argument of too lofty and philosophic a strain for those to whom, generally speaking, it was directed. It was impossible not to feel that the person addressing you was a profound thinker delivering a laboured composition. Sir James Mackintosh's character as a speaker, then, was of that sort acquired in a thin house, where those who have stayed from their dinner have stayed for the purpose of hearing what is said, and can, therefore, deliver up their attention undistractedly to any knowledge and ability, even if somewhat prolixly put forth, which elucidates the subject of discussion. We doubt if all great speeches of a legislative kind would not require such an audience, if they never travelled beyond the walls within which they were spoken. The passion, the action, the movement, of oratory which animate and transport a large assembly, can never lose its effect when passion, action, movement, are in the orator's subject,—when Philip is at the head of his Macedonians, or Catiline at the gates of Rome. The emotions of fear, revenge, horror, are emotions that all classes and descriptions of men, however lofty or low their intellect, may feel here, then, is the orator's proper field. But again; there are subjects, such as many, if not most, of those discussed in our house of commons, the higher bearings of which are intelligible only to a certain order of understandings. The reasoning proper for these is not understood, and cannot therefore be sympathized with, by the mass. In order not to be insipid to the few, it is almost necessary to be dull to the many. If our houses of legislature sat with closed doors, they would be the most improper assemblies for the discussion of legislative questions that we can possibly conceive. They would have completely the tone of their own clique. No one would dare or wish to soar above the common-places which find a ready echoing cheer: all would indulge in that vapid violence against persons which the spirit of party is rarely wanting to applaud. But as it is, the man of superior mind, standing upon his own strength, knows and feels that he is not speaking to the lolling, lounging, indolently listening individuals stretched on the benches around him he feels and knows that he is speaking to, and will obtain the sympathy of, all the great and enlightened spirits of Europe: and this bears and buoys him up amidst any coldness, impatience, or indifference, in his immediate audience. When we perused the magnificent orations of Mr Burke, which transported us in our cabinet, and were told that his rising was the dinner-bell in the house of commons,-when we heard that some of Mr Brougham's almost gigantic discourses were delivered amidst coughs and impatience,-and when, returning from our travels, where we had heard of nothing but the genius and eloquence of Sir James Mackintosh, we encountered him ourselves in the house of commons,-on all these occasions we were sensible, not that Mr Burke's, Mr Brougham's, Sir James Mackintosh's eloquence was less, but that it was addressed to another audience than that to which it was apparently delivered. Intended for the house of commons only, the style would have been absurdly faulty; intended for the public, it was august and correct. There are two different modes of obtaining a parliamentary reputation: a man may rise in the country by what is said of him in the house of commons, or he may rise in the house of com

Some de

mons by what is thought and said of him in the country. baters have the faculty, by varying their style and their subjects, of alternately addressing both those without and within their walls, with effect and success. Mr Fox, Mr Pitt, Mr Sheridan, Mr Canning were, and Lord Brougham is of this number. Mr Burke and Sir James Mackintosh spoke to the reason and the imagination rather than to the passions; and this, together with some faults of voice and manner, rendered these great orators (for great orators they were) more powerful in the printed reports than in the actual delivery of their speeches. We ourselves heard Sir James Mackintosh's great, almost wonderful, speech upon reform. We shall never forget the extensive range of ideas, the energetic grasp of thought, the sublime and soaring strain of legislative philosophy, with which he charmed and transported us; but it was not so with the house in general. His Scotch accent, his unceasing and laboured vehemence of voice and gesture, the refined and speculative elevation of his views, and the vast heaps of hoarded knowledge he somewhat prolixly produced, displeased the taste and wearied the atten'tion of men who were far more anxious to be amused and excited than instructed or convinced. We see him now! his bald and singularlyformed head working to and fro, as if to collect, and then shake out his ideas; his arm violently vibrating, and his body thrown forward by sudden quirks and starts, which, ungraceful as they were, seemed rather premeditated than inspired. This is not the picture which Demosthenes would have drawn of a perfect orator, and it contains some defects that we wonder more care had not been applied to remedy."

Sir James died in 1832. His literary productions consist of numerous articles, some of them very brilliant, in the Monthly and the Edinburgh Reviews; a Dissertation on Ethical science, prefixed to the Ency clopædia Britannica; a Life of Sir Thomas More; and two volumes of the History of England, in Lardner's Cyclopædia; and a posthumous historical volume on the English Revolution of 1688. As a metaphysician, Sir James was acute and sagacious beyond any of his contemporaries, but too refined and cautious in stating his conclusions; as a historical writer he rather acts the part of a commentator on what other historians have written than that of an original writer. His excessive cautiousness throws an air of doubt or inconclusiveness over his pages, which is by no means agreeable to the reader.

"Sir James," says Mr Campbell, "was, in his person, well-made, and above the middle stature. He was regularly handsome in youth, and even in the decline of life, and under afflicted health, was a person of prepossessing and commanding appearance. His countenance had a changeful mixture of grave and gay expression, a shrewdness combined with suavity, that heightened and accorded with the charm of his conversation. No man was a greater master of conversation; he overlaid you with monologue, but overpaid whatever you said to him with insinuating correction; or else, if he approved of your remarks, he amended them by rich and happy illustration. A certain thinness and sharpness of voice was the chief defect of his elocution; and sometimes there was, perhaps, an over-northern keenness and sharpness in his metaphysics; but still the world will produce no such mental lights again."

II. ECCLESIASTICAL SERIES.

Hugh Blair, D. D.

BORN A. D. 1718.-DIED A. d. 1800.

DR HUGH BLAIR was born in Edinburgh, on the 7th day of April, 1718. His views from his earliest youth were turned towards the church, and his education received a suitable direction. After the usual grammatical course at school, he entered the humanity class in the university of Edinburgh in October, 1730, and spent eleven years at that celebrated seminary, assiduously employed in the literary and scientific studies prescribed by the church of Scotland to all who are to become candidates for her licence to preach the gospel. During this important period, he was distinguished among his companions both for diligence and proficiency; and obtained from the professors, under whom he studied, repeated testimonies of approbation. One of them deserves to be mentioned particularly, because, in his own opinion, it determined the bent of his genius towards polite literature. An essay 'On the Beautiful,' written by him when a student of logic in the usual course of academical exercises, had the good fortune to attract the notice of Professor Stevenson, and, with circumstances honourable to the author, was appointed to be read in public at the conclusion of the session.

At this time Dr Blair commenced a method of study which contributed much to the accuracy and extent of his knowledge, and which he continued to practise occasionally, even after his reputation was fully established. It consisted in making abstracts of the most important works which he read, and in digesting them according to the train of his own thoughts. History, in particular, he resolved to study in this manner; and, in concert with some of his youthful associates, he constructed a very comprehensive scheme of chronological tables, for receiving into its proper place every important fact that should occur The scheme devised by this young student for his own private use was afterwards improved, filled up, and given to the public by his learned friend Dr John Blair, prebendary of Westminster, in his valuable work, "The Chronology and History of the World.'

In the year 1739, Dr Blair took his degree of A. M. On that occasion he printed and defended a thesis, De Fundamentis et Obligatione Legis Naturæ,' which contains a short but masterly discussion of this important subject, and exhibits in elegant Latin an outline of the moral principles which have been since more fully unfolded and illustrated in his sermons. The university of Edinburgh, about this period, numbered among her pupils many young men who were soon to make a distinguished figure in the civil, the ecclesiastical, and the literary history of their country. With most of them Dr Blair entered into habits of intimate connexion, which no future competition or jealousy occurred to interrupt, which held them united through life in their views of public good, and which had the most beneficial influence on their own im

provement, on the progress of elegance and taste among their contemporaries, and on the general interests of the community to which they belonged.

On the completion of this academical course, he underwent the customary trials before the presbytery of Edinburgh, and received from that body a licence to preach the gospel, on the 21st of October, 1741. His public life now commenced with very favourable prospects. The reputation which he brought from the university was fully justified by his first appearances in the pulpit; and, in a few months, the fame of his eloquence procured for him a presentation to the parish of Colessie in Fife, where he was ordained to the office of the holy ministry on the 23d of September, 1742. But he was not permitted to remain long in this rural retreat. A vacancy in the second charge of the Canongate of Edinburgh furnished to his friends an opportunity of recalling him to a station more suited to his talents; and though one of the most popular and eloquent clergymen in the church was placed in competition with him, a great majority of the electors decided in favour of this young orator, and restored him in July, 1743, to the bounds of his native city. In consequence of a call from the town-council and general session of Edinburgh, he was translated from the Canongate to Lady Yester's, one of the city churches, on the 11th of October, 1754. And on the 15th day of June, 1758, he was promoted to the high church of Edinburgh.

Hitherto his attention seems to have been devoted, almost exclusively, to the attainment of professional excellence, and to the regular discharge of his parochial duties. No production of his pen had yet been given to the world by himself, except two sermons preached on particular occasions, some translations, in verse, of passages of scripture for the psalmody of the church, and a few articles in the Edinburgh Review; a publication begun in 1755, and conducted for a short time by some of the ablest men in the kingdom. But standing as he now did at the head of his profession, and released, by the labour of former years, from the necessity of weekly preparation for the pulpit, he began to think seriously on a plan for teaching to others that art which had contributed so much to the establishment of his own fame. With this view, he communicated to his friends a scheme of lectures on composition; and having obtained the approbation of the university, he began to read them in the college on the 11th of December, 1759. To this undertaking he brought all the qualifications requisite for executing it well; and along with them a weight of reputation, which could not fail to give effect to the lessons he should deliver. For, besides the testimony given to his talents by his successive promotions in the church, the university of St Andrews, moved chiefly by the merit of his eloquence, had, in June, 1757, conferred on him the degree of D. D., a literary honour which, at that time, was very rare in Scotlar d. Accordingly, his first course of lectures was well attended, and received with great applause. The patrons of the university, convinced that they would form a valuable addition to the system of education, agreed in the following summer to institute a rhetorical class under his direction, as a permanent part of their academical establishment. And on the 7th of April, 1762, his majesty was graciously pleased "to erect and endow a professorship of rhetoric and belles lettres in the university of Edinburgh, and to appoint Dr Blair, in consideration of his approved qualifications, regius